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LAKE CHOCORUA 



JOHN ALBEE 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY 

WILLIAM HOMES 



WASHINGTON. D. C. 

THE McQueen press 

1910 



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COPYRIGHT. 1910 
BY JOHN ALBEE 



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LAKE CHOCORUA 

Weary of ocean's restless tides, 

I climbed Chocorua's rugged sides 

Where all is fixed and motionless, 

And solemn calm the senses bless. 

There on his lofty pyramid 

Heaven is near and earth more hid ; 

There slowly comes the summer night. 

And shine the stars with brighter light; 

While on Chocorua lake below 

As in another sky they glow. 

Dear to me still is that first view 

Never again to be as new; 

Inexorable our nature's law — 

We can not see what first we saw. 

Yet, lest it pass from memory's hold, 

I paint the picture ere ^tis old; 

I paint as picture and as thought 

The Mount, the Lake and all inwrought 

[3] 



With that still life of tree and bird, 
More often felt than seen or heard. 
I found as others often say 
The mountain grand for single day. 
But for perpetual delights 
Whether on summer days or nights, 
Whether by shore or boat or view 
We give the Lake more constant due ;* 
And in my heart a paean rang 
As to the Lake this word I sang: 

Of full-fed brook and mountain rill 
May you ne' er lack your bowl to fill ; 
Nor stones enamelled for your floor. 
Nor singing pines to guard your shore ; 
Nor punctual lilies opening bright 
Their folded cowls at morning light; 
Nor sungleam in midsummer day 
With wavelet lips to kiss and play; 
Nor all the Mountain's mysteries 
When on your breast his shadow lies. 
Ever when all the planets shine, 
Bestud your depths with golden sign 

[4] 



For maids and lovers as they row. 
One sky above and one below, 
Who unto both are truest lieges. 
Heaven and heavenly images. 

Pale winter weeps to you his snows. 
You, treasury of all that flows 
From every mount and intervale; 
Besides, hid springs, that never fail. 
Whether the year be dry or wet. 
With level tide your curves to set. 
Where all along at eve and morn 
Blown flowers are fed and new buds born. 
Oft come the small birds to your banks 
To drink and lift their heads in thanks ; 
And now and then the timid deer, 
Taking short draughts, looks up with fear 
As if he ever heard the sound 
Of footsteps or the baying hound. 
Sometimes at early dawn the mist 
Veils you from sight till sunbeam kissed; 
Then like one from sweet dreams awake 
With little ripples laughs the Lake, 

[5] 



That lure me ere the day begin 
To plunge your lucid depths within. 
But most I love in noontide heat 
To seek a lone sequestered seat 
Beside your shore, where from the brush 
I hear the warbling of the thrush, 
Or catbird bold who makes pretense 
With every songster's notes to fence; 
While thrashers tilt to eye me round 
And ask why I intrude their ground. 

The spider spins her silvery lines 

Over the walls and bramble vines ; 

She builds a bridge now low, now higher, 

Or swings a ladder from some spire 

Of grass ; or in her tunnel curled. 

Her web she hides from half the world. 

Till shown some morning dew-impearled. 

See on the stump above his hole 
The chipmunk, energetic soul. 
The little soldier of his kind. 
With head erect and ears aligned 

[6] 



Daring who comes, and up in arms 

At each intruder's false alarms; 

With eyes all pupil, lustrous black. 

His gun he holds stiff up his back. 

And bent his regimental stripe 

As for an instant charge all ripe; 

But should the foe prove scare and fell. 

He flashes to his citadel; 

Under the stump, below the root 

He laughs and says, '' Now let him shoot!'* 

Strange, that where all seemed still and lone. 

Now earth is full of form and tone; 

On tree and plant, in field, in air 

Myriad breathing life is there ; 

For soon as you yourself compose. 

Nature unveils her hidden shows; 

And 'tis believed by beast and bird 

That man is better seen than heard 

When him they would initiate. 

And take him for their intimate. 

So sitting silent forth appear 

Nature's small tribes without a fear; 

[7] 



And as I watch the mimic m^ound, 
No longer aimless seems the round 
Of tireless ant with heavy load, 
Now tugged, now pushed along his road; 
And now he takes a holiday — 
Ten seconds with himself to play. 
Or sharpen up his mandibles 
For fight; himself he dearly sells; 
Dies, but surrenders not in war ; 
Though dead, clings to his conqueror. 
But who can read the sign when bend 
His antennae toward a friend ? 

There comes my hornet with sharp nose 
To scrape the trees ; his instinct shows 
The wood-pulp for his paper roof. 
Paper it is but yet rain proof; 
And though he shuns the fir and pine 
He takes a cone for house design. 
Comes wasp for mud, or bees take tax 
From every plant for food or wax. 
No burden now the grasshopper, 
Lover of noon, he does not stir; 

[ 8 ] \ 



On elbow leaned, idle fellow, 
In the sunshine growing mellow. 
He seems to sit and dream and think, 
And all his diet is but drink. 
Yet sometimes he a weed aspires, 
And with his mates in concert choirs; 
Or takes a hop, he knows not where. 
But Providence itself has care 
Which gave long legs and shorter wing, 
And guides aright his reckless spring. 
Black brother cricket draws his bow. 
Now lively, now more faint and low; 
At eve he tunes his sweetest strain — 
He sings the song that I would fain; 
Or hides, the hearthstone's sentinel, 
And nightlong chirrups all is well; 
While fireflies see that things are right 
With little lanterns duly light, 
And flash a signal as they pass 
To lampless lovers in the grass. 

When near the Lake I find some cove 
Where air and water scarcely move; 

[9] 



I watch the water-bugs and mates 
Darting about on double skates, 
Nor ever going one way twice. 
Like boys when all the Lake is ice; 
I am not sure, and who can say. 
Whether their life is work or play. 
The featest skater of them all 
Is black, and as a fly, as small. 
Named whirligig or apple-seed ; 
And four eyes boasts he for his need; 
Two for his use in upper air. 
And two to light his water stair; 
In shape a turtle's miniature. 
And all his motions are as sure. 
As self-possessed as devotee 
Of some lake-born Terpsichore. 
He never into straight lines swerves, 
But circles round in graceful curves. 
Taught thus in beauty's line to flow 
By that which rounded Giotto's O. 

A playground is the reedy shore 

For these and swarms a hundred more 

[10] 



Of dragon and of butterflies 

Painted with flower and sunset dyes; 

They flutter, poise, ahght, then glance — 

How the dew's liquor makes them dance! 

They seem as at Creation's mood 

Its word repeating, All is Good. 

Now where they sport and buzz and drone 

They weave the Lake's gay sparkling zone, 

That gives its pleased and placid breast 

Sweet joy till day dies down the west. 

These, with the pine's soft undernote. 

Dreaming of ocean's far-off rote. 

Draw me to thee, Chocorua, 

From noon till glows the evening star. 

Whether in sunny southern lands 
As sung in old imaginings 
On sweet Sicilian strings. 
Pan slept at noon with all his bands. 
The poets know; but noontide hour. 
Where summer is but passage brief 
Between the green and withered leaf. 
To us is nature's amplest dower. 

[ 11 ] 



Our short borean suns with speed 
Work miracles in plant and weed ; 
They spring, they fruit, are come and passed- 
Hark, from the north the winter's blast! 

Not unto us in cultured fields 

Nature her only harvest yields. 

But her outspread, impartial hand 

Remembers all neglected land; 

And but small part of all that grows 

The toil of man or reaps or sows. 

No spot so barren I e'er trod 

But shows that oldest gardener, God. 

Here on my rough Chocorua farm 

Neglect and wildness most me charm ; 

How my unthrifty fancies please — 

The orchard mixed with forest trees ! 

Happy am I to tend and keep 

That which I neither plant nor reap ; 

But share in beauty's benison 

When twenty farms I see as one. 

No walls nor gates bound her broad line. 

Nor sordid talk of mine and thine ; 

[12] ''':A 



She all herself to each devotes 

From Sandwich Dome to Conway's Moats. 

Her bounty, harvest everywhere, 

I glean for winter's future fare; 

When white is every mountain pass, 

And roofed the Lake in thickest glass. 

Then with her store, retired at home, 

I make at will the summer come. 

From yonder rock the grapevines spread 

And clamber o'er the fruit tree's head; 

What boots it though no ripening grape 

Or apple from the tangle 'scape. 

It better with my temper suits; 

I gather still Hesperian fruits. 

Tumble the walls that way or this. 

So decked with wandering clematis; 

If o'ergrown roads the feet confine. 

Let me but see the sky's blue line; 

Or roam the woods where paths are none. 

Pleased with the going on and on. 

As touched by old ancestral blood 

To follow undiscovered good. 



[13] 



And found, still forward, ever fond 

Of fairer paradise beyond. 

Or from trim gardens of the rose 

We go where God his garden sows. 

Where every flower hath found her place. 

Content though none may see her face ; 

Though no hand waters, no hand guides. 

Yet nature for each need provides, 

And for each plant prepares a bed 

Where what it loves it so may wed ; 

Where all the powers of air and earth 

Foreheralded its destined birth. 

What if by man uncared, unknown. 

It has companions of its own. 

And they to one another give 

All that makes life so sweet to live. 

Small is my house, my acres small. 
Yet where I look am lord of all ; 
And far as where my feet may roam 
I ever find myself at home. 
I drink the drops that thrice distill 

[14] 



From clouds the mountain tops unseal, 

Through moss, o'er stones and sand they steal 

Till forth they flow a taintless rill. 

And gold is here I might have won 

Had I the test of Lydian stone, 

Or magic wand in hand to twist 

Where silver hides below the schist. 

But there are mines of richer fee 

Which proud Chocoruan heights oversee; 

Full twenty lakes, though all are dear. 

Dearer Chocorua's mountain mere. 

On this to float, with that to soar. 

Give these, and life can ask no more. 

When comes October's mantling haze 

And all the forests are ablaze. 

Dyed in the blood of their own life. 

When hoar-frost sharpens up his knife. 

The pallid leaf and stalk to sever, 

And the tall pine is moaning ever 

For the lone watch he soon must keep 

While all his shorn companions sleep; 

With what sad steps I bid adieu 

To Lake and Mountain, wandering through 

[ 15 ] 



The wood whose thin and falUng shades 

The Hght now more and more invades, 

And give, recalKng glories past. 

Last look that never is the last. 

Where the high Mountain sides slope down 

To deep ravines, dull tan and brown 

Or fiery red begin to flow 

And meet the intervales below. 

Poplars are yellow, hornbeams gray, 

One colder night brings their last day. 

Bronzes the oak, the ash turns wine. 

The maples frosts incarnadine. 

The birch, of woods the lady queen. 

Now all disrobes her summer green 

And gleams a shaft of marble white. 

Or forest Pharos in the night. 

But winter through the beech tree grieves 

And shivers in her ghostly leaves. 

Now earth and sky begin to frown. 

While wealthy neighbors fly to town. 

Small insects huddle all together 

In safe retreat from wintry weather. 

Passing the time in feast or dreams. 

Nor say how dull the country seems ! 

[ 16] 



In flocks the songless birds yet hover 

And seek at night the hemlocks' cover. 

Where now the vernal feathers gay 

With which the lover won the day? 

Well flattered saw himself the pride 

Of some still shy, dissembling bride. 

He flirts about with amorous plumes 

As passion wild his heart consumes; 

She flies, he follows all the more 

And makes himself a saucy bore. 

She knows him well and all that's in it, 

And whispers, ^^Love, just wait a minute; 

Fm not forever in the mood 

For the mere father of my brood. 

But better like the being wooed." 

But both long since have changed their ways, 

And one his dress ; now all are grays 

Or sober browns, for tourists meet. 

As fast to southern haunts they fleet. 

If here and there one < bides a space. 

Only more lonesome seems the place. 

Last birds, last flowers, ah, why so sad 

When in the Spring just one makes glad! 

[17] 



The weird witch-hazel mocks the gloom 
With its untimely tufted bloom 
Inveigling some last insect rover 
To think the summer is not over. 
Tangled and mildewed now the ferns; 
With its own fire the sumac burns. 
And soon its crimson thyrsus lifts 
Over the snowy crested drifts. 
Now here and there an aster flower 
Or dandelion in covert cower; 
Bereft of leaves they but await 
My farewell and the stroke of fate. 

Adieu, adieu, dear mountain Lake ! 
Unwillingly I thee forsake; 
Yet to recall thou hast a spell 
However oft is said farewell. 
But come, if ever fate should bind 
To other shores with changed mind. 
Come, break the new enchantress' chain. 
And take me to thyself again. 



[18] 



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